Trying to be Perfect
by Voldegirl
Summary: Hermione is struggling mentally. The pressure of always having to have the best grades has become too much. She deals with it the only way she feels she can. Self-harm warning. First story so constructive criticism very welcome! I don't own Harry Potter- all rights belong to J.K Rowling. Rated M to be safe


All her life she had been perfect. An only child it had been so easy at Primary School. With her parents help, she sailed through, topping very class.

Having been accepted into Hogwarts she had been so excited to learn that magic was real that she read everything she could, absorbing the information like a sponge and from pure hard work beat Malfoy into second place.

But now she was just so tired. The strain of the presence of Voldemort, organizing DA, helping Harry and Ron with their coursework and revision whist maintaining her own top grades was too much. She sobbed as she brought the knife against her skin and slashed downward. She felt so cold, so numb and just wished to feel alive again. Red blood poured out of her pale wrist and she watched, riveted, as the thick drops ran down her arm. Barely aware of the pain, she placed a finger in the blood and wrote in huge letters up her arm, "_Worthless."_

"Hermione, are you coming? We have class in five minutes!" Harry's voice broke through her dazed mind. Hermione hurriedly turned the tap on, shoving her bleeding arm underneath the freezing water.

"Coming! Just wait a second," she shouted back pulling down her sleeve. She ran her finger gently over the knife one last time before regretfully placing it back in her bag. Checking her reflection one last time in the mirror she exited the bathroom.

Charms was a disaster. Their end of term exams were on their desks as they walked in. Hermione gazed at hers in dismay. 53%! This was the first time she had ever been below 80. Her marks had been creeping steadily down all year but this sudden drop was a huge shock. Slowly the numb feeling that the cutting had pushed away returned. She put her head down on her desk and tried to think of nothing. But all that kept coming back was the image of the knife in her bag. Why hadn't she left it in her room? Then at least she could be safe from this urge to cut for the day. But no, she had to be an idiot and stick the knife in her bag. Her arm throbbed and she could feel the blood soaking slowly into her robes.

Professor Flitwick called her name off the register and she picked herself up with a jerk. "Here Sir," she replied. He looked at her with a sad smile, placed a tick on his parchment and carried on.

"Stupid!" she berated herself, "how can you be so selfish? You haven't just let yourself down with such a low mark, you've failed your teachers too. Why aren't you working harder? Look at his face. Can't you see the pity? He knows you are failing."

Potions was a disaster. She couldn't concentrate, kept staring at the knife she was using to cut up the boomslang skin. Ron looked up from grinding nettles just in time to catch her adding the skin with the cauldron still on the fire. "No!" he half whispered, half yelled grabbing her hand and yanking it away. She jumped from the suddenly touch, suddenly aware of the classroom around her. Ron looked at her strangely but turn back to their cauldron, watching in dismay as their potion turned from pale blue to brown sludge.

Snape swooped down. "A zero for the day, I think," he purred smoothly, smirking with satisfaction. "That must be a first for you, Miss Granger? I was expecting better. But Weasley, is always abysmal so maybe he is rubbing off on you. " He paused for a second, looming down on them and then snapped, "10 points from Gryffindor. And 7 inches due Monday on what you could do to fix this rubbish you've created."

Hermione could hear Ron's breath catch at the point deduction.

"Slimy git," he whispered to Harry, "he's just annoyed that we're ahead of his precious Slytherins in the House Cup."

Harry nodded sympathetically, eyes on his own potion.

Ron started to clatter his ingredients, noisily clearing up the work space. Hermione automatically started to help. Her mind replied Snape's words, "A zero, a zero, a zero, " reverberated around her head, an endless echo, growing louder and louder. She felt her eyes start to burn with tears and blinked furiously trying to hide them. Furious at her own weakness she gazed at the ceiling. Ron, finally noticing that something was wrong put his arm around her shoulders.

"Hey, don't worry Hermione, you'll win those points back in no time." He grinned, "Bet you'll earn twenty in Transfiguration tomorrow!"

Just then the bell rang. Hermione grabbed her bag and bolted out of her seat. She needed to run, where to did not matter, but she had to get away. Malfoy stopped her right outside the door, "Merlin, Granger, that potion stank nearly as much as your mud-blood skin. If I brewed potions the way you do, I'd have given up years ago."

Harry drew his wand, "Dare say that one more time, Malfoy!"

Hermione did not wait to hear the rest. With a choking gasp she ran as fast as she could up the stairs. Ron shouted after her, but she did not stop. Up, up, up she went, higher and higher, throat burning, legs screaming for air. At last she reached the top of North Tower. She fled to a corner and curled up in a ball, crying. Her fingers frantically groped around in the bottom of her bag. Where was her knife?

Finally her grasping fingers found it and, pulling it out, without hesitation slashed at her wrist. The cut she had made earlier had stopped bleeding but this new one was much deeper. She bit her lip against the pain, but even so let out a small gasp. This was deeper than she had ever cut before. A wave of relief ran over her as the pain made her body relax and her mind calmed. She watched the blood flow out of her body with a detached air, feeling as if she was standing outside her body, looking down at herself. She ran the knife through the same cut again, smiling, happy that she could still feel something. She wasn't completely numb yet.

Tears were streaming down her face. Wiping them away she brought her hand to her mouth tasting her own tears. She laughed at the strangeness of the action, a free and light laugh which almost straight away turned into a sob as she thought back over the day, over the whole chaos of the term. "I'm such a mess." She thought, "Can you get more fucked up than this?"

"Give up, give up," her mind taunted her, "why are you still fighting? You want to die."

"No," came the answer from the stronger part of her mind, "I don't want to die. I cut so I don't have to die. I cut so I can survive."

Hermione stayed in her corner of the tower for another two hours, missing dinner, finishing her homework tomorrow. The blood streaming from her arm slowed. By now it was ten o'clock. She packed away her homework and accio-ed some bandages from her bag. Slowly she wrapped them around her arm and stood. She had survived today Shouldering her bag she left desperate for the much needed sleep she would need to survive another day.


End file.
